Trump pushes for troops on the border

by Mark Cuminale - Copy Editor

Tue, Apr 10th 2018 09:00 pm

Sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office Monday, April 2, President Donald Trump toiled away, thinking of ways he could get the image of his wrinkled, orange, bloated body smothering pornstar Stormy Daniels — out of the minds of the American public.

Then suddenly a wave of inspiration came to him. He wiped the sweat from his brow carefully — not to disturb his perfectly quaffed yellow hair — and began tweeting. The swollen pink fingers of his tiny hands mashed furiously against the screen of his smartphone as he produced his latest call to action.

“Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release,” Trump tweeted. “Getting more dangerous. ‘Caravans’ coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!”

The Monday morning tweet came after Trump spent considerable effort alerting the public of a 1,000 person “caravan” of immigrants crossing Mexico’s southern border and heading for the U.S. Though Trump claimed no sources for his condemning tweets, the president was likely referring to Sunday’s Fox News report of a group of migrants, mostly from Honduras, who were headed for the U.S. border.

The migrant group, known as Pueblo Sin Fronteras — which translates into People without Borders — is a collection of refugees who have fled their place of origin in Central America in the face of persecution and violence. Upon entering the U.S., the group plans to turn itself into authorities and request political asylum.

“Every day Mexico and the U.S. work together on migration throughout the region. Facts clearly reflect this,” Caso said. “An inaccurate news report should not serve to question this cooperation. Upholding human dignity and rights is not at odds with the rule of law. Happy Easter.”

The president’s rallying cry comes after he has taken considerable fire from both his opponents and his supporters. Reports of Trump’s infidelities with Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, along with the ongoing Mueller investigation, have the President backed into a corner by his opponents, while his supporters are growing disillusioned with Trump’s inaction on fulfilling his border wall promise.

As reported by PolitiFact, Trump’s assertion that border wall construction is already underway is less than honest.

“We have to have strong borders. We need the wall. We’ve started building the wall. As you know, we have a $1.6 billion toward building the wall and fixing the existing wall that’s falling down, it was never appropriate in the first place,” Trump said at a press conference on April 3.

The $1.6 billion that Trump is referring to is part of the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that was signed on March 23, and allocates funding for replacing and improving existing fences along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump initially threatened to veto the bill because it would not fully fund the $25 billion border wall project. The $1.6 billion fence maintenance funds are a far-cry from the funding needed to produce the border wall prototypes that Trump has been tweeting about since late March 2018.

So, Trump does what Trump does best — he begins tweeting. His tweets, a mash of sporadic exclamations, are directed at his audience with the intent to show action. Trump means business. He will bury any dissention with a cavalcade of capital letters and exclamation marks.

But, this is not the first time that the National Guard has been sent to support the Border Patrol. Both Presidents George W. Bush, in 2006, and Barrack Obama, in 2010, initiated the action under Title 32 of the U.S. Code.

So, ultimately, this story is another distraction that fits the narrative of Donald Trump. It seeks to hide weak spots in Trump’s presidency from both supporters and opponents, and avoid exposing a forgotten campaign promise, not only to “build a great, great wall,” but to make Mexico pay for it.